Shadow of Freedom

It wasn’t that systems like Saltash provided enormous amounts of cash to the League compared to even the smallest Core system. Not individually, at any rate. Yet there were so many of them, each of them one more revenue-producing node in Frontier Security’s “benevolent” little empire, that the aggregate cash flow was stupendous. And the amounts the League extracted from Saltash in the form of “service fees” and “licensing fees” were more than enough to choke off any domestic economic growth. MacNaughtan knew Saltash was better off than many—probably the majority—of the protectorate systems, and Cinnamon had escaped the kind of grinding poverty that was the fate of all too many other worlds in the Verge. But he wasn’t certain stagnation was a lot better than penury, and he was certain that Frontier Security apparatchiks like Damien Dueñas had absolutely no interest in changing the situation. It was working just fine for them the way it was.

Or it had been until today, at any rate. Unfortunately, Dueñas wasn’t the one who was going to pay the heaviest price. Or who’d already paid it, for that matter. MacNaughtan hadn’t known Dubroskaya well—she hadn’t been in-system long enough—but she’d sure as hell deserved better than she’d gotten! And the MacNaughtan clan had been around long enough for him to know that with Dubroskaya dead, Dueñas was going to heap all the responsibility for what had happened here on her, if he could. It was amazing how convenient dead scapegoats who weren’t around to dispute what had happened could be.

And if anything else goes wrong, he’s going to hang the responsibility for that on anyone he can, too. Which puts me right in the line of fire, and—

His earbug chimed again, louder, and he growled a silent mental curse as it added a priority sequence to the signal.

He looked around for a moment, then crooked a finger at Commander Tad Rankeillor, his executive officer.

“Take the throne for a minute, Tad,” he said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder at the command chair where he should technically have parked his posterior. “Apparently I have to take a call.”

“Hell of a time for it,” Rankeillor grunted. The SSS wasn’t all that big on spit and polish, and MacNaughtan and Rankeillor had known one another since boyhood. “Tell Maura I said hi.”

“It’s not Maura,” MacNaughtan said, hovering on the edge of a grin despite the catastrophe looming its way towards them. He and Maura had been married for less than six local months, and Rankeillor had been his best man.

“Sure it isn’t.” Rankeillor rolled his eyes.

“Not her combination,” MacNaughtan said, and Rankeillor’s eyes stopped rolling and narrowed.

“Who the hell else would com you at a moment like this?”

“If you’ll take the damned deck, I’ll find out!” MacNaughtan said tartly, and Rankeillor nodded.

“Sorry,” he said. “You’re relieved.”

“I stand relieved,” MacNaughtan replied. Spit and polish or not, there were some formalities and procedures which simply had to be observed.

Rankeillor moved closer to the master plot, and MacNaughtan stepped back a few paces, far enough to stay out of everyone else’s way, and punched to accept the audio-only call.

“MacNaughtan,” he said tersely.

“Captain, it’s Cicely Tiilikainen,” a voice said, and he felt his shoulders stiffen.

Tiilikainen had been stationed in Saltash longer than any of its previous governors or lieutenant governors. If Valentine MacNaughtan had been inclined trust any OFS bureaucrat, it would probably have been Tiilikainen. As it was, he at least mistrusted her less than any of her predecessors. To be honest, however, that wasn’t saying a great deal, and his eyes narrowed as he wondered why she was on his private circuit rather than one of the official com channels.

“Yes?” he responded after a moment, some instinct prompting him to use no names or official titles any of his watch standers might overhear.

“I’m on your private combination because I’m pretty sure this is a conversation neither of us would want to make part of the official record,” Tiilikainen said, as if she’d read his mind. “The Governor and I just had a…disagreement.”

“And?” MacNaughtan said warily. Getting into the crossfire between Frontier Security bureaucrats was not something a prudent Saltashan did.

“And I told him where he could put any further cooperation from me,” Tiilikainen told him flatly. “I never did like this brainstorm of his, and I wish to hell I’d argued harder when he first came up with it. But I didn’t, and now it’s come home to roost with a vengeance. You know what happened to Dubroskaya.”

“Yes,” he said, although it hadn’t been a question.

“Well, Dueñas still refuses to back down. He even refused to authorize Myau to evacuate her ships.”

“What?” MacNaughtan’s brows knit, and he glanced at the plot showing the thick shower of life pods descending towards Cinnamon atmosphere. “But—”